BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Pianist Adam McMillan was just 16 years old when he gave his first big Baroque performance – Bach in Carnegie Hall. A few hundred people watched as he played the Concerto in D Minor. He knew the instrument well, having first hit the keys at four years old. But he smiles as he explains the simple approach he took to the concert of a lifetime: “You just freak out, and then you go on stage. And that’s kind of it”.
Now 22, the Brisbane-born pianist has come a long way and will return to Bach with the confidence of his experiences when he performs as part of the Brisbane Baroque’s 5x5x5@5 series. It’s part of the festival’s celebration of 30 musicians under 30 years old, and Adam is excited to be one of the five.
So what’s a piano doing in a Baroque festival, anyway? Adam finds his kind-of-modern instrument liberating as it sets him apart from the rest.
“It does make things interesting because there’s only so much you can do in the way of historically informed practice when you’re playing on a totally different instrument,” he says. “In a way, it frees you up a bit to make a lot of your own choices about how you want to play it on a modern instrument.”
He confesses he’s one for bending the rules at times – though still shows the greatest respect for the composer. “You’re never going to do anything that’s wildly inappropriate but it’s inevitable that you’ll put your own stamp on it anyway by the act of learning and interpreting the piece.”
Such is the case with Brisbane Baroque’s many musicians, who hail from America to Europe and bring their varied teachings with them. But without a great deal of piano on the program, Adam says he feels “separated from what everyone else is doing”.
“I think it’ll be really interesting to see where all the other performers go and how they find their takes on things. Everything will be really different.”
And it begins with the Bach. For the first time, Adam will tackle organ transcriptions by Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni. Busoni was born 150 years ago and was a renowned educator, composer and pianist in day – so it’s no surprise Adam is pumped for the gig. “It’s been something I’ve always wanted to do,” he says of performing Busoni. He describes the transcriptions as “quite far away from the original…it’s a very romantic interpretation in terms of dynamics and emotional context”.
Though young, Adam is a long-term fan of Baroque music and says his history with Bach goes back to his earliest presentations of works like the inventions, preludes and fugues. “It feels like it was always there.”
The muso is in his second year of a Professional Performance Program at the Australian National Academy of Music. He’s learning psychological and physical aspects of his craft and says the most important thing about becoming a good concert pianist is getting out there and performing.
“Admittedly, I still feel like I’m at the point where I’m finding myself as a musician, and finding where I fit in the musical world. It’s not as if I feel I’m a complete package. You always feel like a student of the instrument.
“You just have to be performing a lot to get comfortable with it and face all the challenges. Playing often, you learn to accept each performance as it comes and go with the flow.”
See Adam McMillan perform Bach via Busoni as part of Brisbane Baroque’s 5x5x5@5 series at 5pm, April 13 at City Hall. Tickets just $5 at the door. More info right here.
Image supplied.
